P. T. Barnum? Britney Spears? George Herbert? Jane Russell? W. Clement Stone? Ralph Waldo Emerson? Norman Vincent Peale? Les Brown? John McEnroe? Dear Quote Investigator: There exists a collection of sayings that uses celestial bodies to illustrate advice about setting goals. Here are three examples: If I shoot at the sun, I may hit a …
Author Archives: quoteresearch
The Arc of the Moral Universe Is Long, But It Bends Toward Justice
Martin Luther King? Barack Obama? Theodore Parker? Freemason Commander? Seth Brooks? Jacob Kohn? Dear Quote Investigator: Civil rights champion Martin Luther King, Jr. once delivered a powerful speech with this resonant line: The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I was told that this metaphorical framework has a long …
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If I Could Just Make Them Up On the Spot, I’d Be Famous
Yogi Berra? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: One of the cleverest jokes credited to Yogi Berra is meta-logical. Apparently, some people were following Yogi around and expecting him to utter one of his famous Yogi-isms. Finally, in exasperation he said: If I could just make ’em up on the spot, I’d be famous. This response is …
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Quote Origin: Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives
Winston Churchill? Abba Eban? An Irishman? Apocryphal? Question for Quote Investigator: While watching a cable news channel I heard a commentator present a quotation that he credited to Winston Churchill. When I searched the web I found many different versions: (1) Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted …
The Harder the Life, the Finer the Type
Wilfred Thesiger? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Our local newspaper printed the following quotation and attribution: “The harder the life, the better the man,” the British desert explorer Sir Wilfred Thesiger is popularly quoted as having said. Thesiger led an extraordinary life as an explorer and travel writer, and he left behind a large trove of …
To Love What You Do and Feel That It Matters—How Could Anything Be More Fun?
Katharine Graham? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I enjoy reading your website and refer to it frequently. I’ve been trying to ascertain the origin of the following: To love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything else be more fun? This quote is all over the place credited to Katharine Graham, but …
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Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History
Marilyn Monroe? Eleanor Roosevelt? Anne Boleyn? Laurel Thatcher Ulrich? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Observing a stream of tweets is a confusing way to learn about a quotation: Well behaved women rarely make history – Marilyn Monroe Well-behaved women rarely make history – Eleanor Roosevelt Well behaved women rarely make history – Anne Boleyn Well behaved …
St Paul’s Cathedral Is Amusing, Awful, and Artificial
King Charles II? Queen Anne? King James II? King William III? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a venerable tale illustrating the shifts that occur in the meanings of words over time. During the construction of the Cathedral of St Paul the monarch of England was taken on a tour of the edifice by the …
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Today a Reader; Tomorrow a Leader
Margaret Fuller? W. Fusselman? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There is a popular motivational quotation that is usually attributed to Margaret Fuller and is displayed on many educational websites: Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. Wikiquote lists an extensive collection of quotations from Fuller, but I was unable to find this one. Fuller’s opus “Woman in …
It Has Become Appallingly Obvious That Our Technology Has Exceeded Our Humanity
Albert Einstein? Victor Salva? Sean Patrick Flanery? Jeff Goldblum? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: There’s a quote attributed to Albert Einstein which I like a lot, but I’m not sure if it’s really his: It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. Can you please tell me if it was said or …
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